Chapter 33 - My Costar Threatens Me With A Good Time

"About what?" Yao Shen asks, wiping his sweaty palms on his pajama shorts.

Would playing dumb work with Xin Hulei?

He seems to operate on the basis that Yao Shen is dumb, so, maybe?

Xin Hulei gives him a frosty look as he pets the black cat, who curls up his spine to meet his fingers and closes his red eyes in obvious pleasure.

"You shouldn't be able to see him," he says, his gaze impassive as he scritches the cat under the chin, making it purr loudly.

"Oh? Because it's a very expensive cat?" Yao Shen asks, having made his mind about playing dumb, and now fully committed to the act. "Do I need to pay a fee?"

Xin Hulei doesn't answer him. 

The cat continues purring.

It seems they have reached a standstill.

Yao Shen briefly considers leaving his own room and sleeping in a stairway somewhere.

"Come here," Xin Hulei says, patting the empty space next to him on the couch. 

"I think I'll stay here," Yao Shen says, pressing his back against the door. "I hear better from a distance."

If push comes to shove he can always make a quick escape.

"Come here," Xin Hulei insists. He doesn't raise his voice, but the command in his eyes makes Yao Shen reconsider his strategy.

Gingerly, he crosses the room, but he takes a seat on the far end of the sofa, using the purring cat as a barrier between him and Xin Hulei.

Xin Hulei is still petting the cat, now curled up in a ball, purring up a storm.

"You aren't human," Xin Hulei says, after a few moments of careful deliberation. It's a statement not a question.

'No, I just have a stupid system that makes my life harder,' Yao Shen thinks to himself. 

Although, maybe Yao Shen can still turn this situation around.

"Of course I am, there's nothing else a person can be...or is there?"

Xin Hulei gives him an unimpressed look, as if he can see right through him.

"You know what I am," he says, aloof.

"You're my costar, and China's movie emperor," Yao Shen says, the corner of his lips ticking up. Ok, maybe he is enjoying himself, just a little bit.

A knot of annoyance twists Xin Hulei's smooth brows as he gets up to his feet in a single fluid movement.

Yao Shen has no idea what he's going to do until he's stretching out his arm towards Yao Shen and a blazing seal forms in the air in front of his spread palm, twisting gently in on itself like the gears in a wheel.

He doesn't even have time to be scared or worried, before he's feeling the hot blast of towering flames engulfing him in a blazing inferno.

Despite the sudden heat, Yao Shen's skin doesn't burn. He raises his arms protectively in front of his face, but while flames lick around him like flicking tongues he feels no pain.

The heat dissipates suddenly, Yao Shen blinks his eyes open slowly, expecting to see a wall of smoke surrounding him.

Instead, he sees the noisy, cozy interior of that same weird restaurant Xin Hulei took him to.

The shock makes him stumble backwards, directly into Xin Hulei's solid chest.

A firm handhold on his hip steadies him in place. "Don't make a fuss," Xin Hulei says, his lips almost grazing the top of Yao Shen's ear when he speaks. 

This guy has some nerve.

First he takes Yao Shen out of his hotel room using his demon king powers, or whatever, and now he wants Yao Shen to behave as if nothing happened?

He wrenches himself away from Xin Hulei's grip. "Fuck you."

At that moment the cat jumps out from behind Xin Hulei and hisses at Yao Shen, baring his teeth before disappearing behind a counter.

Even the cat has it out for him.

"Oh, his Majesty is here." It's the same waiter from last time, wiping his hands on his apron, all smiles for Xin Hulei. His smile disappears immediately as soon as it lands on Yao Shen, standing in the middle of his establishment in pajamas. "I mean, his Majesty the movie emperor is here! What do we owe the privilege?"

Yao Shen rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he strains something. This act again.

"I need to find out what he is," Xin Hulei says, his hand landing on Yao Shen's shoulder with a steady grip. "Bring out your instruments."

He leads Yao Shen through a door marked with an 'employee's only' sign, and though his grip isn't hard, Yao Shen is unable to evade it.

"What are you going to do to me?" Yao Shen asks through gritted teeth.

"You'll see," Xin Hulei says, pulling the door closed behind them and throwing the room into total gloom before Yao Shen's eyes even have a chance to adjust to the dimness. "You might even like it."